


Lilting

by auxiliodivino



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, just some chill vibes... nothing bad needs to happen.. jst letting hanzo find some peace and quiet, short story format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9249527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxiliodivino/pseuds/auxiliodivino
Summary: Hanzo has no home to go back to for the holidays, so Jesse offers him one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written on a whim, no time to bother over making things sound pretty

The halls of Overwatch were quickly clearing. Where previously the commons and recreation room had been the center of bustling energy, now only one figure napped on the couch in front of white noise television.

 

 _Bye bye now!_ , a female voice, it sounded like D.Va maybe, rang in the distance.

Another conversation, entering the commons room by the bar. His voiced honed in on the familiar, warm tone - " _Hanzo!_ ", and he opened his eyes to Jesse approaching. Pharah was disappearing into the hallway; travel bags slung over her shoulders.

 

"Where will you be headed? Back home?"

 

He shook his head; effortful movement, voice heavy with sleep and so breaking on the first word. " _Never_. I only plan on staying here. Unless I find the motivation to go wandering again."

 

"It'll be awful lonely here. Everyone's goin' on home."

 

He gathered the strength to lift his eyebrows, so that he could see Jesse's face. An upside-down smile, shadowed under that dumb cowboy hat. "I have no home to go back to."

 

"Ever been to Texas?" He didn't skip a beat; didn't linger on melancholy. Hanzo liked that, only for how unfamiliar it was to him.

 

He didn't need to give a replay; only needed to rise from horizontal stagnation as he watched Jesse wrap his lips around a cigar. He gave a silent demand with a raised hand, and was met with a questioning eyebrow before compliance.

 

"Never knew you had a taste for it."

 

Sometimes, lost in translation, he had to face confusion or embarrasment before remembering some phrases referred to different contexts.

 

He couldn't hold back from coughing as he drew in smoke.

 

\- -

 

 

 

The landscape of the typical American highway continued to hold a surrealism within itself. He swore they had passed the same McDonald's sign five times now.

 

The only sense that marked a differentiation in distance traveled was the music that filled the truck and trailed behind them as they soared on. Jesse sang his heart out, and Hanzo didn't know any of the words, giving him the excuse sit and listen quietly; grin held behind his chin-resting palm as the sun warmed his arm against the open window. The light rolled and arced across the bonnet of the dusty truck as they headed north. Bow and arrow kept in the back; the only luggage he needed. They snacked on jerky and sweet chips and honey pies kept up on the dashboard, settled above a thick layer of cigarette ash. It made the air sparkle when it stirred. On the back of the truck, a worn but colourful bumper sticker announced,

 

**LOVE IS THE WAY**

 

He was sure it was just the southern heat that was filling him with all of this warmth. Heat stroke, probably, as they passed more wheat fields and more cow fields. He licked the honey from his fingers. Though he felt no signs of fainting.

He knew what sickness felt like; too well. It was all he had ever known. There was simply no other way to comprehend it.

 

\- -

 

 

Twice in their day's roadtrip Jesse absolutely _had_ to stop and solace herds of horses gathered along the roadside farmland. Hanzo was much more timid in his appreciation, as he followed his hand along trailed manes and flickering ears. When one of the great beasts so much as blinked at him, he was ready to retreat. Intrinsic trust was something he didn't have time for.

 

The heat left like a parting soul as day turned to night, and then Hanzo was standing in the middle of the midnight highway as Jesse topped up fuel at the truck stop gas station.

 

He turned around, slowly, gaze held skyward at the myriad orchestra of stars, and listening to the distant blaring of truck horns, like a symphony on all sides of him. He couldn't remember there being this many stars. Looking down had taken up too much time.

 

Jesse called out to him, and he looked both ways across the even horizon, saw no oncoming or departing lights, and was sure that he'd briefly passed through into another timeline.

 

He settled back into the passenger seat and wondered if he was the same he that had been thirty seconds ago.

 

\- -

 

Jesse promised him that he would clean up the guest bedroom, tomorrow, as he threw pillows and fitted sheets to the couch. It was two am when they reached their destination: the house on the hill, no longer lonely, just in need of adjusting to new arrangements. A new way of living. Just needed the dust cleared; space made for two.

 

Hanzo didn't like the curtainless windows on the ground floor, though he too was capable of adjusting to things, no matter how long it took. And he could never voice his concerns either way, under such eager hospitality.

 

He passed on a shower, feeling heavy like a pleasant wave as he settled against the fabric ridge of the living room couch, listening to the sounds of pipes and boards creaking; of the house waking up after too long hibernation. Warm water passing over weary muscles above him; unable to be ignored. He stared at the ceiling and let it carry him away.

 

\- -

 

Jesse had to go to the nearest distant town for groceries, and so Hanzo slept in until the rural silence woke him up; showered, brushed his teeth, shaved, and walked around the entirety of the house in just his silk robes, trying to find a clock. He eventually sat down and turned on the television, where the lady speaking looked at him and said _how has God changed_ your _life? Call us and add to the discussion!_ and so he used the home phone to call the number on the bottom of the screen, listened to the wetting of his own lips being played back to him against static silence, and then hung up.

 

He found himself in Jesse's room, on the second floor, and sat on the bed to look out the window for a while, before he lay down and promised himself only to nap for a half hour.

 

A moment later;  _Hanzo?_

 

He kept breaking his own promises. He rolled over against the light of the window that had turned dusky grey, embarrassed; shielding his eyes as he looked up at Jesse. The air was warm and ready for a storm outside. "Sorry. I feel kinda sick. It was too hot... on the couch..."

 

Jesse smiled at him, dipped the mattress as he sat down, and placed his palm against his forehead; skin against skin. Hanzo closed his eyes against it; gently grasped his wrist with a hand. "Not a fever. Just a tired sickness."

 

Jesse lowered his hand to card a tuft of hair behind Hanzo's ear, and then retreated from the touch to lay down on his belly next to him. He took off his hat, to place it over Hanzo's face with a coy smile. Hanzo shrugged it up from his eyes so he could watch the hair along Jesse's jaw shiver as he talked. Jesse was looking out the window.

 

"It rains once in a blue moon 'round these parts. Wouldn't have even guessed it yesterday... blue skies all the way along the interstate, wasn't it?"

 

He closed his eyes at the breaking of thunder outside; the sound low and caressing like a lover. Raindrops beat like a pulse against the window.

 

"Rain washes away," Hanzo said; having intended to offer an ending to the sentence but forgetting what it was that he wanted to say. It was good enough.

 

There was a change in the air around him. He opened his eyes; a white cream ceiling and peach walls. Gentle grey light against his eyelashes. Outside, birds were stirred and calling as they hurried back to their nests; the sound muted through glass, and he was breathing. The mattress was shifting beneath him with each breath that didn't belong to him; an arm against his and body heat radiating outwards. Jesse was right there; voice low and churning stones. "Rain washes away...  _And_?"

 

He slowly raised his fingers, roughened from a decade of knives and arrows. The lack of love had always lay open on his scarred skin; his knuckles, his wrist. A snap of thunder made his hand tremble as he pushed Jesse's fringe behind his ear, to settle a palm against the arch of his neck. He guided him downward without resistance; slowly, and their eyes met as Jesse paused above him just long enough, like a bird hovering low out of a storm.

 

And I'm tired of wasting my life.

 

 

 

 


End file.
